Morsi is to meet senior judges on Monday to try to ease a crisis over his seizure of new powers, which has set off violent protests in Egypt.

A protester returns a tear gas canister to the riot police in Cairo on Sunday. Clashes continued all weekend following Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's decree that put his decisions above legal challenge.

By:Tom Perry and Patrick WerrReuters, Published on Sun Nov 25 2012

CAIRO—Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will meet senior judges on Monday to try to ease a crisis over his seizure of new powers which has set off violent protests reminiscent of last year’s revolution which brought him to power.

Egypt’s stock market plunged Sunday, its first day open since Morsi issued a decree late Thursday temporarily widening his powers and shielding his decisions from judicial review, drawing accusations he was behaving like a new dictator.

More than 500 people have been injured in clashes between police and protesters worried that Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood aims to dominate the post-Hosni Mubarak era after winning Egypt’s first democratic parliamentary and presidential elections this year.

One Muslim Brotherhood member was killed and 60 people were hurt on Sunday in an attack on the main office of the Brotherhood in the Nile Delta town of Damanhour, the website of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party said.

While Morsi defended his decree and insisted it was only temporary, his justice minister began arguing publicly for a retreat that might defuse an escalating battle between Egypt’s new Islamist leaders and the institutions of its old secular-authoritarian government.

The justice minister, Ahmed Mekki, is an influential former leader of the movement for judicial independence under Mubarak, and is now one of Morsi’s closest advisers. He told two television talk shows Saturday night that he objected to the scope of the president’s decree.

The president’s office has said the decree was needed to protect the democratically chosen constituent assembly that is trying to write a new constitution from Mubarak-appointed judges who appeared poised to dissolve it. Mekki said that he supported that goal but that Morsi could accomplish it with a much narrower edict — one that did not assert sweeping immunity from judicial review on other matters.

On Sunday, Mekki met with the highest council overseeing the Egyptian courts to discuss the matter, and the council issued a statement of its own that scholars said appeared to endorse Mekki’s proposed compromise.

The Supreme Judicial Council called on judges and prosecutors, some of whom began a strike on Sunday, to return to work.

Morsi would meet the council on Monday, state media said.

“In his head, the president thought that this would push us forward, but then it was met with all this inflammation,” Mekki said of Morsi’s decree.

He faulted the president for failing to consult with his opponents before issuing it, but he also faulted the opponents for their own unwillingness to come to the table: “I blame all of Egypt, because they do not know how to talk to each other.”

Morsi now faces a test of his ability and willingness to engage in the kind of compromise that democratic government requires. But he also faces real doubts about the willingness of his secular-minded opponents to join him in compromise.

Morsi’s office repeated assurances that the measures would be temporary, and said he wanted dialogue with political groups to find “common ground” over what should go in Egypt’s constitution.

Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, saw an effort by the presidency and judiciary to resolve the crisis, but added their statements were “vague.”

“The situation is heading towards more trouble,” he said.

Sunday’s stock market fall of nearly 10 per cent — halted only by automatic curbs — was the worst since the uprising that toppled Mubarak in February 2011.

Images of protesters clashing with riot police and tear gas wafting through Cairo’s Tahrir Square were an unsettling reminder of last year’s uprising that led to Mubarak’s ouster. Activists were camped in the square for a third day, blocking traffic with makeshift barricades. Nearby, riot police and protesters clashed intermittently.

Morsi’s supporters and opponents plan big demonstrations Tuesday that could trigger for more violence. “We are back to square one, politically, socially,” said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage firm.

Morsi’s decree removes judicial review of decisions he takes until a new parliament is elected, expected early next year.

It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened it with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.